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Dr Youwen Zhou, who delivered the 2007 CDF Lecture to the Canadian Dermatology Association Annual General Meeting in Toronto was presented with a plaque at the CDA President’s Banquet, which reads: “Dr Youwen Zhou has been named The Canadian Dermatology Foundation Lecturer for 2007. This award is made in recognition of the excellence of his research and of his address on “Molecular machinery of metastatic melanoma”. Dr Zhou’s presentation highlighted current concepts in understanding how melanoma cells can spread from the skin to other organs throughout the body. Malignant melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer and Dr Zhou’s research findings will contribute to designing innovative treatments. Dr Zhou outlined the scope of his research in the following abstract. “Melanoma is an aggressive cancer that develops from melanocytes, the cells that produces the pigmentation of our skin. Early melanomas can be cured if treated with surgery. However, once having become metastatic, or spreading to other body sites, melanoma is highly fatal. Since the main reason for the high mortality rate is the lack of effective therapies, and this in turn is because of lack of clear understanding of the molecular composition of metastatic melanoma cells, there have been major efforts in the last decade aiming for systematic dissection of the molecular machinery of the metastatic melanoma cells. To date, many of the steps involved in the development, migration, local invasion, systemic circulation and distant-site colonization by the melanoma cells have been understood. Further, the molecules that play vital roles at each step have been identified. An example of such a molecule is CTHRC1, which plays important roles at multiple steps of melanoma metastasis. Now the efforts have been directed to applying these molecules to the improvement of patient management, by developing new predicting methods based on these molecules, and designing new and more effective targeted therapies for metastatic melanoma.” The Canadian Dermatology Foundation was established in 1969 to further scientific knowledge of skin diseases. The CDF is the leading source of funding for peer-reviewed dermatological research in Canada and grants to date total over $ 4,000,000. For more information on the Canadian Dermatology Foundation, go to www.cdf.ca |
